Coronablip: Day 1

I’m not sure whether I was aware of it at the time, but I wasn’t in a great place when I first got into blipping. A bit of a combination of burnout and dealing with depression (which I definitely wasn’t aware of at the time). 
 
Blipping was a little contract I made with myself.  Whatever else I couldn’t handle, or motivate myself to do, I could always take a photograph. My phone was always right there in my hand, for goodness sake.  The disciplined bit of my mind – the bit that’s a right bossy pain in the arse when in full health – would poke at me to take a photo of whatever was around, or prompt me to use what little mental energy I had to find a good picture. 

A scene from a day out I’d forced myself to experience. An otherwise mundane aspect of daily life, just to prove that I wasn’t entirely numb.  And the moments that will genuinely live on in my mind forever.

The blip contract with myself soon expired, a sign not of worsening health but indeed one of improving mental health - my mind was engaged and occupied elsewhere. Since then blipping has been more of a habit than a discipline – the scene prompts me to record the blip, rather than the blip prompting the search for a scene.  And now, I’m in a very good place, with balance and resilience in my life, something that took me some 20 years of working life to achieve. I’m too busy embracing that to always remember to blip.
 
But I’ll never forget how that tiny little bit of discipline that came from blipping helped me when things were hard.

Life is going to be hard for many of us as coronavirus, or COVID 19, settles into our lives.  Worry about loved ones, loss of social connection, isolation and the challenges that brings. I’m one of the lucky ones. I don’t have the family challenges that others face. As an introvert I am entirely happy speaking to no-one for weeks on end, and my job means that my workload has become more interesting, rather than being put on hold or becoming more difficult to deliver.
 
Today was my first day in a new post in the Scottish Government supporting the COVID effort. It’s very far from the front line of public service where the truly remarkable efforts are to be found, but as a career bureaucrat I have the privilege of being a (very small) cog in the wheel that helps keep the country running.  This blip is the scene from my office, although I don’t expect to be spending much time there as we work from home.

I imagined a chorus of Edinburgh’s international population lined up at the windows, softly humming strains of “That’s Amore” over the rooftops of the old town. But of course there would be a Glaswegian or two in there, just to throw in some rude lyrics and stop it all being too twee.
 
Day 1. One day at a time.